As one to whom Time meant nothing nor ever would again, he sat down on the edge of the old wreck and drew his empty pipe from his pocket. "Just behind that broken spar there you'll find a tobacco tin, I guess," said Jaffrey Bretton. "I rather plan to cache more or less of it around on such shelf-room as the island [136] affords. . . . It's such a blamed nuisance to get way off up the beach somewhere and find you've forgotten your 'baccy'. That's the only conceivable fault I could find with this island," he mused. "There's so little closet room and practically no shelves!" "Puff, puff, puff," without a flicker of expression the Outlaw sucked at his pipe. "Puff, puff--puff--puff, puff." With a gesture toward the tents, a nod toward the retreating back of the Brown Khaki Lady, Jaffrey Bretton essayed to re-crank the conversation. "My ladies," he confided, "have been swimming--wading--running not to say--yachting!" "Pretty ladies!" blushed the Outlaw. "Thank you," bowed Jaffrey Bretton. "Puff, puff, puff, puff, puff," sighed the Outlaw's pipe. Very deftly Jaffrey Bretton reached round behind the broken spar for a smoke of his own. "Any special news this last year?" he asked. Thoughtfully, from the long monotonous months of heat and glare and squalor and [137] privation and almost absolute isolation, the Outlaw extracted as a sheer gift the one comely fact. "I--seen--a whole bunch of pink--curlew," he said. "The deuce you did!" brightened Jaffrey Bretton. "Any news--up--your way?" droned the Outlaw. From Europe, Asia, Africa--from the courts of kings and the gossip of queens, from a hundred adventures, from a hundred glittering memories Jaffrey Bretton traded gift for gift. "I saw the World's Series," he confided. "I saw Frank Baker make his two home-runs." "N--o?" shivered the Outlaw. Very slowly he removed the pipe from his mouth. For an instant only, a muscle twitched like a sob in his grizzled throat. As though suddenly consumed with bashfulness, he began to shuffle his bare toes in the sand. "Got--got the same President as usual?" he ventured at last. "As far as I know," said Bretton. "I was in Washington three weeks ago." [138] "Orange crop good up-state?" persisted the listless voice. "Good enough, I guess," acquiesced Bretton. "Anything--special--in the papers these days about Alabamy?" mumbled the pipe-clenched lips. "Alabama's still on the map," admitted Bretton. "Puff--puff--puff," mused the Outlaw. Then very limply he struggled to his feet. "Say, Martha wants you," he said. "Martha?" puzzled Jaffrey Bretton. "Wants _me_? . . . What for?" "She don't say," said the Outlaw, "but she wants you--quick." "Quick?" gibed Jaffrey Bretton. "She sure wants you quick," repeated the Outlaw.